May 13, 2008
With the intense school schedule that two courses in four weeks brings, plus weekend field trips, we have found over the years that there is very little downtime to enjoy Crete and so this year we have not scheduled classes on Wednesdays.
The ‘free’ day can be used to enjoy Crete by visiting the nearby city of Chania, one of the local beaches or just chilling by the pool however, we have offered to program some half day excursions (last week it was Rethymno and Margarites) to get them out of the village and the students have taken us up on them.
Today we drove north on the Akrotiri peninsula (north of the airport for those of you following us along on a map) to the Gouverneto Gorge for a brief hike down to the Artemis Cave dating back to Neolithic times. After some late-night revelry the night before, the group looked a little thin around the edges (some strange form of mass headache, upset stomach and dehydration seemed to have taken hold) as they boarded the bus for a 30 minute drive to the gorge. The area at the gorge entrance is a tranquil landscape of olive groves, vineyards and picturesque stone farm buildings belonging to two monasteries (Moni Agias Triadas and Moni Agias Gouverneto). Another impressive display of driving by Taki our coach driver as he negotiated very tight hairpin turns up a natural gorge to bring us to the gates of the Moni Agias Gouverneto.
We walked along the laneway hopeful that the fathers of the monastery were in a good humour as they have been known to turn away hikers in the past and we stole past the monastery buildings without a sign of them. The view from the top of the gorge is of a wild rocky landscape complete with goats, heather, broom, roses and sage and the Cretan Sea to the north (and about 1000m below us). We started our descent to Arkoudiotissa (Bear Cave) along a narrow semi paved pathway that had some tricky footing: your entire attention has to be on the path and any photos can only be taken when stopped. Dr. Cat, ever prepared and a major hiker had hiking poles!
The Neolithic cult cave of Artemis is huge (think Red Gym size) and after the beating sun it was lovely and cool, almost damp actually. It’s quite a feeling to stand where people walked, lived and worshipped approx 7000 years ago. In the centre of the cave is a huge stalagmite resembling a bear and many photos of it were taken by the group. Also in the cave, built into the rock wall, are two small chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the entrance is guarded by the ruins of an old church of unknown (at least to me) vintage.
Two local fellows were at the cave burning garbage in a pit as part of their custodial duties and they let us into the cave via a locked gates. I was amused that one of them, quite taken with Dr. Cat, informed her that he was the one who had found ‘the clay tablets’ in the cave – I guess that is a local ‘pick-up’ line! It didn’t work.
We decided not to proceed down the really steep path to the relic church at the bottom of the gorge (it was built as the site of a cave in which St. John the Hermit lived and performed miracles) as the students were anxious to get back to the village and finish off three assignments due to tomorrow. By the time we got back to the top of the gorge, there were quite a few other hikers preparing to descend and we were all drenched in sweat! The bus AC felt very nice indeed and it was only noon, not yet the hottest part of the day! Back at the village, the afternoon was quiet and study groups can be seen on balconies, by the pool and in rooms trying to meet deadlines.